How GIS Has Changed Our World

US Department of Agriculture offers a interactive map called Food Environment Atlas that gives a spatial overview of a community’s ability to access food across the United States. The map layers cover access and proximity to grocery stores, food prices, physical activity outlet, diabetes rates, obesity rates, and socioeconomic factors. To see map, click here.

Mapping access to supermarkets in the United States can improve access to healthier foods to reduce obesity. Food Desert Finder is an interactive map, displaying people in poverty without walkable (1 mile) access to a supermarket. VERTICES has also worked and contributed to similar projects from mapping healthy places to eat and places to buy food in Newark, New Jersey, to mapping safe bike routes.